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ESRB Logo (Ratings Guide)

The Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB assigns age ratings to most of the video games published in North America. These age ratings fall under five categories based on content descriptors assigned to identify content within each video game. These categories are Everyone (E), Everyone 10 and up (E10+), Teen (T), Mature (M), and Adults only (Ao) (Ratings Process). Not much is known about the ESRB’s rating process due to a lack of transparency; however, it is known that the ESRB does not play the games they rate before assigning the rating (Frequently). They instead give the developers a questionnaire and ask for a gameplay clip (Ratings Process). The ESRB also does not require this gameplay clip for games being released digitally only physical games (Ratings Process). While the ESRB states that games can be played after release this does not cover the initial release of the game allowing consumers to pick up a copy of a game with an incorrect rating (Frequently). Video games are very relevant to modern culture. Video Games have affected almost all mediums of media including television and music (Minnesota). They have also changed how people think of others and how they interact with them as more people are connected through online gaming (World). The gaming industry is also one of the most lucrative in the world (LSU). In 2010 the industry made 15 billion dollars. This was due to an average increase of 7.5x every year since 1996 (LSU).

There are a handful of articles on the ESRB’s rating system and its effectiveness. One, that focuses more on the history of violence in video games, is Carly Kocurek’s “The Agony and the Exidy: A History of Video Game Violence and the Legacy of Death Race.” Kocurek is a college professor bringing credibility to this article. This article really drove home the significance of game ratings within America based upon their findings that even though only five percent of games rated by the ESRB are rated M they made up half of the top 10 games of 2011 (Kocurek). This shows that the ratings are especially important for multiple reasons. First, with so many games rated M as top sellers, it shows the tendency for the popularity of more mature games to be sold. Without ratings, this could result in minors obtaining games that their parents are not comfortable with them playing. Hence a reliable rating system is important to inform buyers of the content of what they are buying and whether or not it is appropriate for them or their children.

A second source is “Content and Ratings of Mature-Rated Video Games.” This article looked at games that were Rated M by the ESRB and analyzed whether or not rating labels were consistent with the actual content of the game (Thompson). The researchers went about analyzing games by first picking a random sample of games to play (Thompson). They then took said random sample and had a volunteer play through the games in their entirety recording the process (Thompson). After this, the researchers analyzed the footage making note of any occurrences of aspects of the game that would warrant a specific label for content (Thompson). Finally, these results were analyzed in order to show that many times the ESRB misses content descriptors (Thompson). This source gives concrete evidence that the ESRB’s rating system is insufficient by analyzing the entire game in its entirety (Thompson). While this source may seem like it is too similar to my research it should be noted that this research came out in 2006 making it outdated for current analysis, it used games that are not under the resting categories I will be using, and it did not look at whether or not the overall rating from the ESRB was accurate.

The final source I looked into was “Content and Ratings of Teen-Rated Video Games” a study was done in 2004 by those who completed the one on mature-rated video games. This article looked into many of the same aspects as the one done on mature-rated videogames analyzing the content of games through gameplay and recorded gameplay. This article came to a similar conclusion that content descriptors were inaccurate in teen-rated games as well (Haninger). This further bolsters the significance of testing the ESRB’s rating system as multiple studies have found that the process is inaccurate and that these studies have been done in the past signifying that reevaluation would be important to understand if these findings are outdated or if they are consistent with modern findings.

The ESRB's Rating levels (Ratings Guide)

Through the combination of these sources, I can discern a relatively accurate understanding of the scholarly conversation, or lack thereof scholarly conversation surrounding the ESRB’s rating system. This, on top of the significance of the gaming industry in modern society, shows that the ESRB has a significant impact on the lives of Americans and game developers due to the control they have over the distribution of games in America, influencing purchases made by parents as they trust the ESRB’s ratings, and potentially has a rating system that falls short of accurately describing content within video games due to a limited style of analysis that does not cover the eternity of the game. It is for these reasons that I will be analyzing games with ratings of E, E10+, and T. The games will be from 2022 in order to reduce the likely hood of full playthroughs by the ESRB.

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